Subaruist

I would recommend not going with metaal-to-metal, there is a reason why there is rubber there, and going with metal-to-metal would mean that other components would be getting a lot of 'shock' without it. I would recommend either: #1: Finding/using a super epoxy to glue it back together - sounds like shady mechanics, but it might just work and it would be as it is meant to be. #2: Replace the rubber block with pure RTV silicone, and if you want to be serious about it, there is a Kevlar fiber additive to mix into paint that would make the silicone extremely tough. #3: Use either method above, but before hand put a bolt through it if you can, with good lock nut, or a paior of lock nuts facing each other on the bolt/thread, and install the bolt without tightening it, just bringing it up against the metal plate, not even finger tight, but preferrably with a little slack. This way, the silicone does what the rubber does, but in a bad situation when you just want to get to your destination, the bolt will hold it together if the silicone were to fail, as a sort of fail-safe/back-up

I understand... I expected the type of reply you made, and have no problem with it. You need what you need - that being said, I could do better with broken parts and JB Weld, lol... I see what you do, what you know, and your womnderful Bumble Beast, and its "What's wrong with this picture?!?" I would expect that kind of rigging from myself or the average older Subaru owner, but honestly, I hold you in higher esteem. You can do better, you deserve better, but the problem is solved for you and I guess that is what matters most.

Nothing.... - Am I the first one to do that ? lol...

Ok, I tried to resist, but something got the better of me and i have to comment.... That is the sloppiest damned manufacturing I have seen in a while! - SORRY! SORRY! I'M SORRY !!! Look, you had to do what you had to do, I understand, maybe you were desparate and out of options, ok... I mean, most of that thing looks like decent machining, but that weld looks like a 5 year old went to town with paydough! I am presuming that this is for another car (can't remember the car you mentioned), - Now, if this was something going on your 'Bumble Beast', THEN I would be uspset with you! Again, I'm sorry, I know, I know how it looks/sounds, but the sight of that weld is giving me some kind of allergic reaction, I need some Pepto Bismal or something.... Lol...

I think people might be missing the priority on this theft issue... I posted previously about people fauwning over my Brat and taking pictures of it at 2:00AM in the mornong. I love all the compliments I get, but this is getting just plain wierd. The priority should be keeping your BRAT, as a whole, safe. If it's one thing now, it will be something else later, or the whole vehicle getting stolen. I am getting a haunting feeling that these Brats may become TOO much of a true "collector" car, and might become not only an endangered species, but akin to the ancient Ermin, the critter whose fur was white with black speckles thast lined the collars of Kings' robes, seen in many dipictions. The Ermin became ever more sought, ever more priceless, untill they were hunted to extinction. The Subaru Brat, I belive still holds the record for the #1 "Scarciest" auto to find oin Autotrader.com, with an average of 27,000 seraches to find even one for sale for any time at all. I get offers from people on an average of once every 3 weeks,. and a couple didn;t really want to take 'No' for an answer. - and of course, people taking poictures of it at freakin' 2:00 AM in the morning ! lol... Me thinks we Brat owners should maybe GET a little paranoid, as who knows, we may start hearing some day about them getting stolen in unusual numbers - come to9 think of it, maybe someone should check and see the stats on Brats getting stolen over the last few years, to see if it is increasing to any degree to9 cause concern.... I swear.... No vehicle seems to get the attention that mine and other Brats seem to be getting, lol.... Yesterday I parked at the store next to a truck with kids in it, and they were saying: "WOW.... That's a race car...... - Its a... Brat... It looks COOL!.... - Daddy, I want a Brat ! Lol....

Right with you there man... Thanks for the unintentional reminder, as I have half the parts to make my someday Harley hot-rod side-pipes. I can;t do it all in stainless, unfortunately though - Harley mufflers were chrome, ok... I had to search for a couple months to find the right kind of X-pipe at an affordable price, and it is made of standard material, but I plan on painting it with maybe 'Cold Galvanize' or High-temp exhaust paint at least. The rest of the system I was planning on regular aluminized steel, but maybe better to go with stainless now that I thinkl of it again...

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Brat Design was covered in one of my previous posts: "Who Designed the Subaru Brat, specifically?" http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/topic/149646-who-designed-the-subaru-brat-specifically/ where people replied with a wealth of info.

I did a real quick search on this, but have a suspicion or hunch about it... WHY was the Brat on "My name is Earl" painted with an American flag ?!? Although it is possible is already had that paint job, the odds are that it was painted for the series. Here's what I am wondering... Could it have been some joke, like Joy was dumb and thought is was an American vehicle instead of Japanese? ( It was an American "DESIGN" ) Is there any particular reason expressed in the series about WHY it was painted with the American Flag? No reason? Just being patriotic regardless of it being a Japanese vehicle? I mean... Logically otherwise, would it not have the Japanese Setting Sun ? - Has anyone painted a Brat like that? Inquiring mind(s) want to know !!!

I wish I could have, and did t5hink of it, but no practical way of doing it without someone else for the most part. Even though the Gas gauge has not worked since I got it, this was the first time I ran ouit of gas.

What did I do to/with my Subaru Brat ?!? I took it for a walk on the freeway !!! - No kidding !!! My fuel guage has not been working, except for the idiot light on it, so either I keep it topped up when I can, or I just put gas in when the idiot light goes on.Well, I guess the sunglasses I had on kept me from seeing the idiot light so I ran out of gas on the freeway about 3 miles before the off ramp... When the gas ran out, the Brat just kept going, it coasted and rolled for more than a mile before it even started slowing down. About a mile from the off ramp, it was rolling slow so I pulled onto the shoulder area, stopped, got out, and gave it a gentle push, - and it started rolling again, not downhill, level ground, so I just started walking next to it, merely holding the steering wheel to steer it. This continued for about a mile... I was just casually walking next to my Brat with one hand on the steering wheel ! lol... At this point, I really didn't even mind anymore, because I was grinning and laughing the whole way at how it must have looked, me walking casually, hand-in-hand with my Subaru Brat down the freeway shoulder, lol... I eventually parked it right where the off-ramp began because I ran out of shoulder, and this ramp was not safe to walk up, so I walked downthe hill to some maintenance roads under the freeway, found my way to the nearest gas station and the rest is predictable. I so love my Brat anyway, and today I even liked it when it ran out of gas !!! - Oh, and I got two more requests to sell it in the last couple weeks, lol... NE-VER !!!....

Other things I have done: I can't understand why the factory did not paint under the T-Top 'wings', being that the T-Top is a major feature, but I decided to correct that oversight, and painted that area silver, partly to go with future LED lighting that will shine in there to help show it off when the situation permits. The front (bug) deflector shield was something I saw at the local thrift and got for only $3, so I had to have it,mostly because of the color, as this Brat will eventually be painted in shades of blue. Speaking of paint... I started the first stage of the paint. The bottom 'stripe' being black. I chose that color for several reasons: I am considering coating these area(s) with truck bed coating or similar, which only comes in a couple of colors in a spray can; it accents the silver of the rims and will also accent the side pipes when I am able to get the exhaust done; and when I add the last layers of paint with "shimmer metal flake" it will accent that too; These areas are where the sun shines least, so no point in putting fancy colors there; As overtime, road grit, rocks, etc. will eventually scratch some of it up, and it will be easy to touch up, especially considering that I used Walmart 96 Cent spray paint for it. Everything lines up nicely including the rear bumper. The bottom section painted black seems to almost disappear, it makes the Brat look sleeker. It made a very good improvement to the look of the Brat, Very happy with the black I also finally got around to fixing my drivers' seat, where the upholstery, foam, etc.had come off, leaving the metal frame bare, causing me discomfort and other problems. I used a combination of thin but dense/stiff foam rubber, and a piece of a really cushy kitchen floor mat, used contact cement, then duct taped it, and was then able to put my scavenged seat covers on. Seat feels great, just like it originally would, no bumps or anything. This also meant that I could finally put on one of the key mile stones, the steering wheel cover! The seat is perfectly comfy when I get in and sit down. Very happy with it. This clears the way for bondo and finishing the paint one section at a time. One real disappointment was that the Krylon "X Metals" chrome-ish paint that looks like colored chrome or anodized aluminum was discontinued, which really ticks me off! I had such plans, and that paint was going to be put to a lot of good use, but NO0O0oooo! Once again my plans are foiled by discontinued paint !!! - So I am having to adapt and such...

I`ve been away\busy for a while, due to work, getting laid off again, getting sick etc. etc. But I have been getting things done in between it all. Just before Christmas I finally got the clutch and front bearings done, then last month I was finally able to get the tires and rims taken care of... I made a deal with a local mechanic and got the use of a sand blaster as well as his ability to do wheels. A couple of the rims were in bad shape, lost of rust, crud, old adhesive and tire residue and would not have held air, so I sand blasted the rims and gave it a coat of Cold Galvanize. The only problem with this is that it made it more difficult to mount the tires, so when a new guy who knew nothing tried to do one of the wheels, he ruined the tire. I improvised. Here are the before and after pics of the ugly, ugly, horrible looking rims before and after I sandblasted them,painted them, and had new tires put on: This was the end of "PHASE 1" (In which Dorris gets her oats). The original plan was to get the exhaust done before moving on, but getting laid off just before Christmas more than killed that plan for the time being. Here is what my Brat looks like now so far, (additional post(s) for other things done.) More to come...

I decided that my rear cargo area access fromthe cab through a small hatch out-ranked the 2ndary fuel tank I bought fromthe scrap yard. So I took it back to sell for scrap, as well as get some aluminum for the rear bed/deck project. I will find or figure out a 2ndary fuel tank that fits the area I want it to be in, rather than letting my lust for that tank take over the other aims of projects. To my surprise, the man running the yard actually gave me a full refund, which balanced against the aluminum I bought left him owing me $1, lol. Still waiting for the first opportunity to sandblast and paint my rims. Despite my efforts to learn where everything is to buy when I am able to to a project, it seems what I need suddenly becomes unavailable yet again. First it was my beloved Flourescent Blue, now nearly extinct. Now it is the Krylon X Metals spray paint. (Blue, in fact). The man at Fred Meyer said the stuff was very popular, now when I am ready for it, gone! I hate that ! - Can't depend on anyone consistently carrying anything anymore. So now I have to spend hours trying to find somewhere, for some reasonable price a paint that will probably not be anywhere next year if I need t to fix a big scratch, etc.? And what happens 2 months after I buy the next best paint - maybe it gets discontinued too ?

I GOT MY BRAT BACK ! - I GOT MY BRAT BACK ! Got it out of the shop finally, and the clutch is working great! Working so great, in fact, that when I picked it up, I popped the clutch on two occasions by accident, lol The best news yet is that I owed the mechanic $700.00 for wheel bearings and clutch job, plus ONLY $25.00 for extra parts that were bad. ( $725.00)- Then he only asked me for $700 even! I think the guy had to take it out and put it back in at least twice if not three times, He had to order one part from back east, - that was the main delay, and spend extra hours fooling with it, and trying to figure out what the real problem was (I posted about that previously). Almost got my rims sand-blasted yesterday, but it ended up that they will let me do it myself, as they are too busy, and although I hoped to do it today, there was too much rain today. I would have done it in the rain ( had to be done outside ), but if I sand-blast anyway, and the rims get and stay wet, the rust will start coming back. I don't want to have to use rustoleum, I am already putting 2 or 3 different coats of things. Then, disaster struck when I went to pick up the Krylon X metals BLUE paint, which the salesman a few weeks ago said was very popular, is n longer on the shelves, and I can't seem to finsd it anywhere! I so hate when this happens. I work in advance to maker sure of what I need, where it is, how much it costs, and when time comes to buy iit they have already discontinued it for some damnned reason. This was supposedto be really good stuff, and had a great look, so what the hell? Now I am desparately looking for the last of the stuff, to possibly horde it, and wondering if I should bother. I chose to make competent use of spray paint, instead of geting all the stuff I would need to do my own mix with a pneumatic paint gun, so that if I had to do any repairs or changes or additions, I would have the best chance possible to match the color best. So now maybe I should get the "Shimmer" metal flake in a can? I really wanted that super metallic X-Metals paint. At first clear weatherI plan to do the sand-blasting...